HRC campaign sale: Everything must go!

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign is wrapping up a fire sale of sorts, in which it dispensed computers, servers, desks and most other office fixtures not bolted down to charities, campaign vendors, politicians and just regular folks — all in the name of raising cash to pay off its debt.

Until about three weeks ago, signs in the windows of Clinton’s suburban Washington campaign headquarters advertised a moving sale and offered all kinds of office equipment for purchase, and some equipment is still listed for sale online. From the time she conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama through the end of October, Clinton’s campaign reaped $373,000 through nearly 400 separate “asset sales,” according to reports her campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission.

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That won’t put much of a dent in her vendor debt, which stood at $7.5 million at the end of October, according to an FEC report filed Thursday night.

But every penny counts for Clinton, who’s had a tough time raising cash since dropping out of the race. Thursday’s report shows that in October she raised $774,000 and brought in another $42,000 through asset sales, allowing her to pay down $507,000 of her vendor debt.

It would be unprecedented for the FEC to allow a candidate to write off such a large debt. But it’s quite common for losing candidates to sell off their assets, particularly to their former staffers and sympathetic political committees.

Campaigns are like start-up businesses that have to rent, equip and staff offices around the country on the fly, then quickly go out of business, leaving them with all sorts of things they no longer need.

After former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani lost his bid for the Republican presidential nomination this year, he offered steep discounts to former aides willing to purchase the BlackBerries and laptops he bought for them to use on the campaign, said his campaign lawyer Jason Torchinsky.

Torchinsky worked as a lawyer on President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection bid and said that afterward, he bought a TiVo from the campaign.

“It’s a little unusual to open it up to the general public,” Torchinsky said of Clinton’s asset sales. “It’s not illegal or prohibited at all, as long as you’re getting a reasonable market price for what you’re selling,” he said, explaining that fetching too high a price could be seen as “getting an impermissible contribution.”

“I also find it interesting that she would sell to charity instead of just making a donation,” he added.

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines pointed out that the campaign also donated many items to charities and foundations, and he said “it was very common” for the campaign to give away free stuff to people who purchased some items.

“Generally speaking, the campaign has endeavored to be creative and cost effective in its efforts to pay down the debt, and many in the community have benefited,” Reines said. “So it's win-win, always the best kind of deal.”

In Chicago, an aide to President-elect Obama said the campaign was donating much of its office equipment to charity.

Clinton reported sales of more than $14,000 to eight charities, including the National Student Partnerships, a student-led volunteer service organization. It bought 18 computers — sans monitors, which had already been sold — for $2,700 from the campaign, which originally had paid $11,300 for the hardware, according to Reines.